City commission approves $50,000 for pothole repairs

Breckenridge City Commissioners approved $50,000 to repair potholes around the city at their meeting on Wednesday night, Jan. 2. The repairs will be made by Raydon Inc. of Breckenridge.

City Manager Andy McCuistion said that because of recent rains, city crews have not been able to make pothole repairs and they continue to get bigger. He said the potholes were overwhelming city crews and the city does not have the ability to fix all the potholes it has. The money to pay the contract will come from sales tax revenue that is already designated for road maintenance.

“I think $50,000 worth of pothole repair will go a long way, and I think the citizens will appreciate that,” McCuitsion said.

Mayor Bob Sims asked McCuistion how the city will decide which potholes get fixed first. McCuistion said they will drive around the city and pick the worst potholes to fix.

“We’re going to take the busiest areas, the high traffic areas,” McCuistion said. “The ones around the hospital have been there for a long time; those ambulances don’t need to be driving over those things. And around the schools…we repaired Second Street once, but there’s still some potholes there that need to be repaired again. We’ll take the schools, the downtown, hospital, those kind of places and try to get those first. Then we’ll go in the neighborhoods and get the worst ones first.”

Commissioner Russell Blue asked McCuistion if $50,000 will be sufficient to get started on the repairs and to please the people. McCuistion said the money won’t be enough to fix all the potholes but will get the repairs started and that the city workers will make some repairs, too.

Sims asked if the company will be responsible for taking care of those potholes in the future, once the potholes are repaired. McCuisiton explained that after a pothole is repaired, the company doesn’t have any responsibility for them, unlike when they build a new street.

“On a street, they give us a warranty on it, but we go through the whole process where we get bonds and all that kind of stuff. We’re not doing that on potholes,” McCuistion said.

Breckenridge Public Works Director Houston Satterwhite told commissioners the process of repairing a pothole is basically cutting out the pothole and stabilizing what’s happening below it and then re-asphalting it. He said the cost will be about $14 per pothole.

McCuistion said the repairs will begin as soon as Raydon is able to commit the resources to the project and the weather dries up enough for to them to make the repairs. He said they make asphalt that can be put into wet potholes to repair them, but the cost is much higher.